This invention relates generally to bulk material handling, and more specifically pertains to an aerator that pressurizes a storage container and fluidizes bulk material to flow from that storage container into a delivery system. The invention is especially useful for unloading a tank trailer hauling granular bulk material.
The discharge of bulk material granules from a storage chamber can result in blockage of the exit from the storage chamber or other interruptions in the flow of material which cause various conditions such as arching, bridging, “rat-holing” and the like. Storage chambers exist in various types of equipment including hopper trucks, hopper cars, storage silos, bins and other types of industrial storage chambers. When a blockage or interruption of the flow of bulk materials occurs, substantial down time in clearing the discharge opening goes against the storage chamber operator, hauler, or pipeline. Further, substantial loss of bulk material product occurs following incomplete “clean-out” or removal of product from the storage chamber, and contamination may occur after a product load from product remaining from a previous load incompletely cleaned from the storage chamber.
The typical environment of the aeration device of the present invention appears in FIG. 1. There, a fragmented portion of the bulk material container, or storage chamber C, includes a downwardly tapering or conically shaped bottom B having a discharge opening O at the lower end of the hopper, or container bottom, B, which leads into a discharge control valve V. The valve controls the discharge of bulk granular material, or the like, from the hopper or storage chamber C for direct discharge beneath the hopper or into a transversely extending discharge line L. The bulk material container C may be used in hopper trucks, hopper cars, storage silos, bins and other types of containers for bulk material storage. Incorporated within the bulk material hopper container C, a plurality of aeration devices 1 mount to the container bottom B a predetermined distance above the discharge opening O. While many of the aeration devices 1 may be used in the bulk material container C, FIG. 1 illustrates two of them in operation.
Aeration devices 1 in a bulk hopper container or storage chamber C operate upon air introduced via the air flow line F, at approximately 20 to 25 psi into the aeration devices 1 as shown in FIG. 2 where a gasket flaps and vibrates nearby particles of bulk material. The air then flows out from the gasket of the present invention. Air, shown by arrows A, passes beneath and outwardly from the gasket in a rotation, preferably counterclockwise as in FIG. 2a, to vibrate and secondarily to aerate and to fragment the bulk material particles P. Alternatively, the air flow exits the gasket in a clockwise manner. This aeration thus prevents any blockage or interruption as the bulk material particles P are induced by vibration to flow through the opening O in the bottom B of the bulk material container C.